


mess me around

by ilgaksu



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Declarations Of Love, How To Prove You're Really For Real Dating Your Ex-Rival, M/M, Not So Much Fake Dating As, nobody believes they're dating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25266550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilgaksu/pseuds/ilgaksu
Summary: “Lance,” Keith mutters fiercely under his breath, watching Pidge’s shock turn into eye-rolling.  “Lance. Rein it in. You’re losing them.”
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 410





	mess me around

**Author's Note:**

> written for the anonymous prompt: "au where klance are dating, for real, but nobody believes them, and they keep trying to prove it in ridiculous scenarios" 
> 
> thanks for the prompt - this is such a fun concept!

Okay, so here’s the thing: 

If you were to ask Lance how this whole thing went down, not only would he be more than happy to set the record straight, he’d’ve actually insisted on it, on account of how it all got out of control and the blame for it getting all out of control was - in a word, it was - 

Yeah, if you were to ask Lance, this was all  _ Keith’s _ fault. All of it, entirely, which - 

“No, it wasn’t,” Keith says, leaning through the doorway and interrupting Lance’s very important, very private conversation with his sister. Lance settled for sticking his tongue out at him and nudging the door with his foot, until - there, perfect - it swung closed in Keith’s face. 

Well, almost perfect. The problem with Keith - and there were a lot of problems with Keith, Lance had a whole list of the problems with Keith - but this - this problem was that Keith was extremely fucking attractive. Lance had tried to parse it down to a science - what was it about Keith that made his skin prickle hot with sheer want - but it was the combination of the details into the whole, really. It wasn’t his eyes, or his hands, or the careful way he spoke, or the way he scowled in annoyance. It was how these things slotted together until: there he was. There he was. Ruining Lance’s life like always, just by dint of his being Keith, and being unfairly hot, and a little half-feral, which was also hot and - 

Listen, Lance knows he’s getting a bit distracted from the main point of all of this, but can you blame him? Keith is his boyfriend now. If Keith was your boyfriend, you’d brag about it too. Let’s not pretend here. Really, Lance is underselling it as an experience, because sure, Keith is annoying, but he also has this perfect laugh. For all Lance says his eyes are only part of it, his eyes when he laughs are spectacular, like the dark velvet of a dawning eclipse. And his mouth is - 

Kissing Keith is like the first time Lance ever did a backflip: like the first time he dived a perfect arc into a pool, or clung to Keith’s waist as he turned a tight corner on his motorbike. That exact gut-swooping joy. The same adrenaline singing along his body electric. Kissing Keith is the closest to tasting poetry Lance has ever gotten. 

It’s a shame nobody actually believes he’s ever gotten that far. Because - here we go, finally getting to the point, good ol’ Lancey Lance has got around to it at last - nobody actually believes they’re dating. No, for real, they don’t: no matter what Lance says, or Keith does, or anything. No matter about any of it. Their friends think it’s a colossal prank. Therein lies the problem: Lance is dating the most beautiful boy in the entire galaxy, probably, and he doesn’t even get to be properly smug about it - because when he does try to be smug about it, it gets laughed off. As a joke. 

As you can imagine, as far as jokes go, it’s getting old. 

* 

If, on the other hand, you were to ask Keith about this entire fiasco, he would tell you - with absolute, devastating certainty and clarity - that it was all  _ Lance’s _ fault. Of course it was Lance’s fault: it usually was Lance’s fault, when you pinned down the details of a situation. It was always Lance’s fault: Lance with his ridiculous laugh and his smile that made Keith’s whole body go hot and how excited he was just to hold Keith’s hand, never mind anything else.

The first time he saw Keith fully naked, Lance went so quiet Keith had panicked. He’d never been self-conscious in his life, and wasn’t about to start being now - only - 

And then Lance had breathed something stupid and endearing and brutally sincere about how pretty Keith was, and kissed up his neck, and Keith had been able to breathe through the momentary panic, spurred on by the stunned press of Lance’s mouth, until - 

Anyway, he’s getting distracted, which Lance makes very easy, because he is very distractible and very distracting both, but Keith - 

Unlike his boyfriend, Keith has the capability of sticking to a linear narrative when he’s telling a story, so his version of how all of this has been unfolding goes a little bit more like _ this _ : 

Boy meets boy. Boys make a bad first impression: boys plural, because both boys, both ways, both bad. Then the boy gets plucked up, picked out, and paired together for the biggest work project they’d ever been given by their bosses, at either of their companies, and they were therefore forced to liaise with each other and play nice, until it stopped being playing and started being real. Yes, still plural. Yes, both boys. 

Yes, it’s an unconventional beginning. The fact that the one truly unbelievable thing left for their friends-slash-fellow-co-workers is that Keith and Lance might consensually put their mouths near each other is....extremely telling. Those bad first impressions were, after all, bad. But still. Keith doesn’t think it’s that incredible, but who’s he to talk, maybe it is? All their friends seem to think so: even worse, their mutual friends have gone from seeing it as a prank to being irritated and bored of it as an ongoing prank - like Keith and Lance are locked into a game of gay chicken and are trying, ever-desperately, to outdo each other. 

Okay, so, in hindsight, given Lance’s insistence on their apparent rivalry, and his similarly vehement insistence on the non-existence of any previous bonding moments, Keith can kind of get where they’re coming from. 

No matter what him or Lance do, nobody is buying any genuine possibility they could, be, you know -

Having feelings for each other. In feelings with each other. Keith refuses to say love: it’s too early to say love. And if their friends can’t even notice it, then it can’t be, right? Because no matter what they do - 

(Holding hands; taking photos together; that one memorable time Hunk caught them breathless in the communal staff kitchen after hours with Keith backed up against the cupboards and assumed they were fighting; that other memorable time Pidge caught them rolling around on the training mats in the local gym and assumed they were fighting; that time Shiro found them stood very close in the showers by the bank of sinks in the  _ same _ gym three weeks later and assumed they were about to start fighting - 

Okay, there’s a theme here. Keith can see there’s a theme here.) 

No matter what they do, they don’t seem to be doing anything genuine as far as everyone they know is concerned. At first it was kind of funny: they’d flirt as outrageously as possible to see how far everyone else’s denial could stretch. 

Now, it’s just really fucking annoying. 

“We just have to make, like, a statement of intent,” Lance says, “Make a point! Take a stand! It can’t be too dramatic. It’s got to look sincere.”

Keith swallows down a response about the irony of Lance, resident drama queen, explaining to anyone else about a need to tone down on the dramatics, and nods. 

It’s decided. They’re going to prove their love to the world or die trying. Or - something like that, anyway. 

An opportunity will present itself soon enough: Keith lies in wait. 

*

As it is, a ready-made solution  _ does  _ provide itself. Who says destiny is a bitch? Sometimes she gives us weirdly-wrapped gifts. Or something like that. Keith isn’t great at metaphors. 

Today, they’re all sitting in a bustling cafe on the outskirts of the city somewhere. Lance is tucked up close enough to Keith’s side that the warmth of it bleeds through Keith’s clothes. They’re out of office and off the clock and in between bickering with Pidge and Hunk, Lance is helping himself to Keith’s current drink. 

Keith slaps his hands away as Lance reaches for it for about the sixth time. It’s on principle. 

“Don’t be greedy,” he says, and Lance sticks out his tongue and retorts, “Sharing’s caring!” 

“Someone really needs to teach you about reciprocation,” Keith tells him calmly, and takes a big gulp of his drink. 

“Is that what you’re calling last night?” Lance laughs, his trademark shit-eating grin sliding onto his face. Oh no, that’s never a good sign. That’s always a sign that some peak nonsense of his is about to fall right out of his mouth. “Because I think we’ll agree that I fully paid back for what I was owed, Keith. With interest.”

Well, there it is. There’s the matching trademark nonsense. Keith still nearly chokes on his drink, a sense-memory of Lance’s mouth occupied in other, more intimate places flashing white-hot through him. Lance makes another attempt at swiping his drink and Keith bats his hands away again. 

“Lance!” 

The drink is a nitro-coffee kind of thing, with a lingering taste like burnt sugar and Keith ordered this, actually, because it’s his favourite, and Lance could just as easily go order one himself. They’re not so attached at the hip that he can’t walk to the counter and use his own charm on the small, pierced barista. Keith cannot - will not - give in to the miserable kitten-in-an-animal-shelter eyes Lance is insisting on sending his way. He already gives in enough to Lance: this way only lies madness. And spoiling Lance. Lance is already a spoiled brat, and he’s already encouraged enough in that without Keith helping him further along in it. 

“Yeah,” Lance says now, smug, “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.” 

“That doesn’t even make sense,” he grumbles now, “Literally nothing you’ve just said even makes that much sense,” and Lance shrugs and flings a warm, careless arm across Keith’s shoulders. 

“But you’re still blushing, babe.”

Pidge sighs. 

“When are you going to quit this already?” she asks, rolling her eyes. Lance and Keith exchange glances, resigned. 

“We’re probably not planning to?” Lance says, raising his eyebrows. “I mean, not unless Keith loses all sense of taste and breaks up with me, that is?” 

“Guys,” Hunk says softly, “I get you’re both committed to fucking with people, but don’t you think this is going far enough? You’ve been play-acting at this for like, three months.”

“For the hundredth time,” Keith sighs, “We’re not acting. Do you not believe me? Do you want a demonstration?” 

“No,” Hunk says, with feeling, just as Pidge yelps a “Don’t you dare, Keith,” but Keith kisses Lance anyway - mostly just an excuse to kiss Lance, but there’s also a little bit of spite-laced pride nestling under his breastbone now. Keith has something to prove. 

It’s familiar now, kissing him, and the heat and breath of Lance’s mouth opening to him easily still sends sheer adrenaline rushing down his spine. He’s light-headed when he pulls away, for all the kiss had been a brief one. 

“Method acting isn’t winning you any favours,” Pidge snarks when he pulls away, but her voice is hesitant. She’s wide-eyed. She’s about to laugh it off. And Lance snaps. 

It’s not that Keith didn’t know Lance has a temper. You don’t spend time around Lance McClain and not know that: he throws tantrums better than a toddler in a supermarket can sometimes. At the same time, Keith can’t deny that the flash of Lance’s eyes as he works himself up to real, justified annoyance is incredibly fucking hot. As it is now: Keith sees it coming in how his shoulders shift, rolling back, his head tilting up high, each and every muscle snapping to attention as though he’s at the Garrison again. 

“When are you going to get it, Pidge?” Lance says now. “Like, I don’t know whether this is about the fact you guys think it’s impossible for me to like him, or impossible for me to take anything seriously, and like - listen, I really do get it. I do. I get I’ve pulled dumb shit before, and spun it out too long, I get it. What do I have to do to get you to buy this? Serenade him? Stand with a boombox outside his window? Sweep him off his feet? Get married in Las Vegas?”

“Lance,” Keith mutters fiercely under his breath, watching Pidge’s shock turn into eye-rolling. “Lance. Rein it in. You’re losing them.” 

But it’s too late: Lance has a hand clamped around Keith’s wrist, is hauling up out of his seat, right in the middle of a nondescript cafe in the corner of space and he’s - 

This time, when he kisses him, he gathers Keith up in his arms like an actress in a black-and-white movie, all tenderly, a feat difficult to accomplish with them both the same height, but he doesn’t stop there. Oh no. Of course not. Lance has never done anything by halves. And so, he dips Keith like something out of a dance routine or a wedding photo-shoot or - 

He dips Keith halfway to the ground, and Keith is heavy, and Lance still does it, and he better not drop Keith or Keith is going to kill him, and - 

The loss of his hold on artificial gravity is leaving him light-headed as much as the kiss, but even he notices how Lance unwinds one arm from him solely to flip Pidge and Hunk off - 

Keith sighs. Congratulations Lance - on being so ridiculous in sincerity it comes full circle and goes right back into show-boating. 

And then, gravity finally kicks in. Lance doesn’t so much drop Keith as they both fall to the ground, a tangled heap of bright eyes and open mouths and Lance is already shaping his lips around an apology, but, well, Keith has always been heavier and - 

“Fuck it,” Keith says, laughing, and he’s not sure if he hauls Lance into his lap himself or if Lance clambers in, ready as a puppy, only that they’re kissing again and Lance - 

Is it always going to be like this with Lance?

“Oh shit,” Lance says against his mouth, pulling back to give them an inch of space, “I totally overdid it, didn’t I?” 

“Yeah, Lance,” Keith tells him. He can sense people staring. He can sense their friends staring. In disbelief so loud Keith can practically hear the ring of it. “Yeah, you overdid it.” 

At least he’s not going to get bored. That’s one thing, right? 


End file.
